Ten hours.
It would take them ten hours, assuming they didn’t stop. Annie bit her numbing lip, trying to recalculate the number, hoping the number would work out better on the second try. It did not.
“How long have we been out here?” she asked, turning back towards Tony. His face was bright red from exertion. She hoped he wouldn’t have a heart attack. He wasn’t out of shape. In fact, he was quite the opposite. He looked like he worked out on a regular basis, not one of those fair-weather weight lifting types. Even still, you had your Jim Fixes of the world, dropping dead of heart conditions in tip-top health. She’d be on her own if this trek killed him.
“I’m not looking at my watch,” said Tony, his words raspy and filtered through the whipping wind. He disappeared and reappeared again, a magic act afforded by the treacherous weather. “But I’d hazard a guess that we’re going on four hours. I’d say we’re halfway there. That sign back there said that Rotterdam is another mile. I feel like The Purple Cat is right over the Rotterdam line, right?”
She nodded. He didn’t drive home this way, but she did. Typically, Tony would have veered off onto route 7 after turning onto the first stretch of Route 201. Not that Annie ever followed him home or anything, but she knew that he lived a couple towns over from her, in the quiet berg of Franklin. Suddenly, Annie pictured his wife and children, sitting quietly by the door, waiting for their Daddy to come home. And what was Daddy doing? He was playing Sir Galahad with another man’s wife, moving northwest when he should have been heading straight north. Sure, he’d have only a quick trek once he got her home, but it would veer him out of the way for at least a day’s worth of travel, given the current speed their sled was moving. That was another day without his family, without supporting them. For that, Annie felt a sharp guilt in her gut.
It was six more hours until The Purple Cat, unless her math was askew. Six more hours of hoping that there would be some food and warmth there, or at the very least, some blankets, or tablecloths to bundle up in. Even though she wasn’t doing the physical labor, she was exhausted, enough so that she nodded off a couple of times. She awoke with a snap, worried that Tony would see her napping and take offense to it, as though he was some kind of unwilling slave.
Quite unexpectedly, Tony occasionally sang while he worked. Slushing sounds, violent wind gusts, and Tony’s voice filled Annie’s ears: “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go!” He accompanied the repetition of that single line (she wondered: weren’t there any other words to that damn song?) with a series of painful whistles. She could barely hear the whistling, but it sounded like he had a knack for it. They were high pitched and crisp, as if delivered by a pro.
At first, she chuckled at his terrible singing voice. She was just loud enough so that he wouldn’t hear her amusement. Perhaps that was his intention, to get a laugh out of her, to force a bit of charm down her throat. His voice eventually lulled her, even though the words would surely drive her crazy soon enough. The song reminded her of Paulie, who had recently emerged himself in classic Disney movies. Snow White and The Seven Dwarves was probably his favorite, right next to Bambi.
She pictured Paulie, cuddled up next to her in the wheelbarrow hull.
Annie could practically smell his breath, slightly sweet from the orange sherbet that he loved to snack on before bedtime. She usually frowned on that kind of snack, but Christian loved to sneak it to him, as the child was mildly addicted to it. It was their little private thing, eating sherbet together at the kitchen table after a long, hard day, so Annie never got on Christian’s back about it, even though she was worried Paulie’s teeth might soon rot out of his precious head.
“Hi Ho! Hi Ho!” yelped Tony, now sounding like he was trying to project his voice in an amphitheater. She could hear Tony laughing to himself and she suddenly worried that he might go crazy if they were stuck out here long enough. If he went crazy, she had no idea what she’d do to protect herself. Annie couldn’t deal with crazy, especially when crazy had romantic intentions towards her. “Hiiiiiiiii Ho! Hiiiiiiiii Ho!”
Serenity filled her as she continued to picture her baby boy.
She remembered the first time she held him, right after Paulie was born. Though she fought through a prolonged labor, she ended up having a C-section, mostly due to pain and impatience. She labored for more than twenty hours before they took Paulie out the new-fashioned way, as Doctor Deacon called it. There was a delay in giving the pinkish little fellow over to her, as she had to recover from the surgery for at least a half an hour, so that there was enough time for the drugs to wear off.
Bring me my son. Right now.
Ma’am, you need to get a little more clear-headed first. We wouldn’t want you dropping that little guy on his head, would we? That would be a terrible way to start things off.
Bring me my son. Christian, tell them. Tell them I need to see my son right now. It’s been a half an hour and I still haven’t breast fed him. Don’t let them give him any of that formula crap… I need to give him his first milk. Go tell them that, Christian.
Ma’am, please calm down. We won’t give him any formula, I assure you. You’ll have him within the next fifteen minutes, I assure you.
You said that, fifteen minutes ago, too. I don’t believe you anymore (looks at nametag), MARY.
And that moment, which felt like it would never come, finally came.
She held Paulie close to her, looking into his tiny blue eyes, surprised that he was opening them so soon. It wasn’t typical from what she had read. She couldn’t even formulate words, for all the joy swelling inside of her, and she could see it in Christian’s dreamy expression as well. He was a proud papa, and he’d be a wonderful father. They’d both be wonderful parents, in fact. Paulie, in that single instant, became the sole reason for breathing, for existing, for surviving. He was everything that she had ever hoped for and she would die for him. And for Christian, as well. They’d die for each other, if it ever came to it.
Hey there, little guy. Your papa and I are so proud of you. You’re the sweetest little thing I’ve ever held. All the other mommies out there are gonna be jealous of you and me. We’ve got something special, don’t we?
Annie sobbed, trying to hide her face from Tony.
He didn’t notice, and he continued to sing, “Hi Ho! Hi Ho! To The Purple Cat we go!”
Annie fell asleep to the soothing swoosh of the sled, with vivid images of an innocent prince with radiant blue eyes, looking up at his mother for the very first time.
Chapter Eight
The Purple Cat came at them out of nowhere, awash in blinding white. Annie drove by it so often that she couldn’t recall the way it snuck up on you when you came around the steep curve before Lower Eastman Road. It wasn’t there, and suddenly you were in The Purple Cat’s parking lot, taking in the smell of greasy fries and burgers, except on Fridays when they had their prime rib and broiled chicken specials on the menu.
The last time Annie and Christian had dined at The Purple Cat, Christian swore that he was a victim of food poisoning. Given that he had a pretty ironclad stomach, Annie swore off the place from that moment forward. And here she was again, trudging through waist deep snow as they neared the path, ready to kick in the front door, which looked like it had been recently shoveled or cleared out with a snow blower. Somebody had been here recently, but Tony continued, unflinching against obstacles.